Tips

Bagged, chopped and pre-washed kale have been flooding the supermarket. My local organic market has it and so does Trader Joe’s. While this kale is a lot easier to use, I really don’t think it tastes as good. So I stick with buying kale in bunches and cleaning it myself.

With the kale that is especially dirty, a general rule of thumb (from where I’m not sure) is that you should wash it three times. Here is my technique for washing it, especially when I find little bugs, like this one, even after I take it out of the fridge.

Step 1. Fill a large bowl with water. Tear of kale pieces from the stem and drop them into the bowl of water. With clean hands, fully emerge and stir the kale to loosen up the dirt.

Step 2. Using a large colander, take big handfuls of kale out of the bowl of water and drop it into the colander until no kale is left in the bowl of water. You’ll see bits of dirt in the remaining water. This is supposedly the best way to separate the dirt from the kale.

Step 3. Dump out the bowl of water. (Ideally, dump it into your garden and use it to water your plants so as to not waste the water). Then repeat the process until you don’t see any (or at least not much) dirt in the leftover water, or about 3 times.